I'm going to miss okonomiyaki, especially the ichiban oishii stuff at the local joint, just down the street, near the overpass. That was the first restaurant Nancy and I successfully negotiated on our own, and we haven't turned back. Seems like we eat there every week.

Okonimiyaki means cook what you like, so Nancy always gets the corn to chizu (corn and cheeze) and I always get the mikisu (bacon, squid and shrimp). On our first trip the owner helped by mixing the batter and pouring it onto the kotatsu, a table-slash-grill-slash-plate. She showed us how to flip it - okonomiyaki is like a pancake mixed with a pizza, if that makes sense, and takes a few tries to flip properly - how long to cook it for, how to check to see if it's done and how much sauce to add. Nancy likes a lot of mayonaise, I like a lot of katsuobushi and seaweed. While we're waiting for it to cook, I eat a couple sticks of oden - egg, tofu and beef cooked four days slow in fish broth. Then, when we're about half way through our okonomiyaki we order yasai yaki soba, or vegetable fried noodles. After that we're stuffed, so we sit around and digest for a while before heading home.

Mmmm, okonomiyaki.